


Sunny Skies Everywhere and In Between

by Charm



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Boys In Love, Cotton Candy, Fluff, M/M, Schmoop, carnival fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 13:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6705703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charm/pseuds/Charm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘We are getting popcorn, asshole. You dragged me out here, we’re getting popcorn.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunny Skies Everywhere and In Between

‘You done with the paper?’

‘No.’

‘Gimme the sports section.’

‘Dean, when was the last time you even watched a game?’

‘Why the hell do you think I want it, Sammy? Gotta reputation to maintain. Man’s man. And all that.’

Sam huffs a skeptical laugh but slides the sports section carefully out from the center of whatever town they’re in now’s skimpy daily paper and throws it to Dean across the space of carpet that separates their beds.

They read in silence for precious minutes before Dean snaps the paper over to the next page, and Sam can hear the question forming on his tongue even before Dean speaks.

‘Has Nebraska--’

Sam stops him before he can get any further. ‘We’re not going to pretend to talk about sports for your ego, Dean.’

He can see Dean pouting out of the corner of his eye and resolutely ignores it, smiling inwardly.

Dean is approximately eight years old most of the time, and though Sam can’t seem to put his finger on why, it’s one of the things he can’t help loving about him. When he gives in to the urge to analyze, something he does far more than he’d like to admit, he supposes one of them has to stay light in all the heaviness that surrounds their lives. Though he sometimes wishes it was himself a little more often.

‘Find anything?’ Dean sighs after a while, flicking the paper away to the foot of the bed.

‘Ice cream social this Saturday, Morrison Park.’

‘Nice. Anything else, Opie?’

Sam fights the urge to stick his tongue out at Dean and very nearly wins, Dean making a vague slashing motion at him as though tempted to slice it clean off. ‘Not so far. I told you we could have driven on through to the next town.’

‘Yeah, but this one has a carnival.’

Sam puts down the paper to look at his brother properly. ‘And?’

‘And it’s a _carnival_.’ Dean stares back at him - over the black stripe of a headline that declares the Tigers are one game away from ‘the perfect season’ - as though he need offer no further explanation.

‘You told me you had a feeling about this place!’

‘I did!’

‘And that feeling was?’ Sam raises his eyebrows, slouching back against the wall and the pillows bunched up behind his back. They’re stuck in a truly shit motel run by people who have apparently never even heard of the internet, let alone provided access to it, and it’s hot. Hot as hell and dusty as fuck and Sam should maybe work on his similes. He’s sure his vocabulary is becoming limited both by months spent on the road and Dean’s questionable choices in entertainment. He reminds himself to take comfort in the fact he still remembers what a simile is.

Dean just grins and Sam rolls his eyes and leaves the room. It’s a frequent exchange. ‘We are not going to a carnival!’ he yells over his shoulder, standing at the tiny sink just inside the bathroom, roughly pushing toothpaste down into the grooves of his toothbrush in retaliation.

Dean remains quiet, which is never good. It means he thinks he’s already won. Which he usually has.

Sam slams the door to muffle the sound of Dean’s silent laughter.

 

 .

 

‘Popcorn first,’ Sam says, reaching across Dean to point out the tiny pink booth glittering in the sunlight about fifty yards away from their perch on the hood of the Impala.

‘Dude, we’re not getting popcorn.’ Dean’s digging through his wallet, trying to figure out just how much cash they have to work with, and doesn’t see Sam’s horrified face so much as feel it. ‘What?’

‘We are getting popcorn, asshole. You dragged me out here, we’re getting popcorn.’

‘That shit gets stuck in my teeth!’ Dean looks up just in time to miss Sam snaking a hand around his waist to snatch the wallet from his fingers.

Sam takes off running for the garishly colored popcorn shack, laughing like Dean hasn’t heard in what feels like forever, Dean’s wallet clutched triumphantly over his head as he goes, and Dean smiles.

He knew he'd had a good feeling about this place.

 

 .

 

‘Whatever happened to maintaining your reputation?’ Sam attempts to cross his arms but his spiral of cotton candy gets in the way. He settles for shoving one hand in his pocket and eyeing Dean as seriously as is possible with candy-pink sugar crystals painted across his lips, stuck to his cheek.

‘Dude, it’s clearly a stallion.’

‘Mhm.’ Sam climbs awkwardly up beside him onto what most closely resembles a pink hippopotamus and can’t help but think this is an incredibly pink carnival, almost wishes he had memories to compare it to. Maybe not almost.

The carousel's calliope music settles down around them as they start to move and Sam can’t help but grin as Dean lets out a whoop, sugary fingers sliding tight around the golden bar in front of him, holding on for dear life.

 

 .

 

‘Dude, seriously, is there anything that you’re not going to eat today?’

Sam shoots him a look like he’s crazy and Dean raises a hand to count off on candy-stained fingertips all of the places they’ve hit in the three hours since Sam had run off with his wallet, but before he can get a word in, Sam’s spotted the root beer float ‘palace’ to their left and takes off in its direction. He smiles when he looks over his shoulder, waving for Dean to follow him and Dean feels his skin shudder with warmth and something that must be happiness.

He follows. Of course.

 

 .

 

‘This thing is broken.’

‘Pfft.’

‘It is!’

Sam shifts against the side of the Strong Man game Dean’s been wailing on for nearly ten minutes now, ignores it as it shakes against him when Dean brings the mallet down in yet another attempt to ring the bell. ‘Give it here, let a real man try,’ Sam says, knowing the grin stretching his mouth is evil at best and Dean’s probably fighting the temptation to swing it at him instead.

‘Fuck off. It’s broken and this is bullshit and you couldn’t hammer a nail into a wall, Sammy.’

Sam slips up behind him, lets his fingers trail lightly over Dean’s knuckles, wrapped around the wooden handle of the mallet. ‘Never had any complaints about my hammering before.’ His voice is whisper-soft in Dean’s ear and cheesy as hell and Sam smirks at the quiet grunt in the back of Dean’s throat as he raises the mallet high above his head once again.

The bell rings loud and crisp into the fading twilight and Dean knocks against him as Sam strides determinedly towards a nearby pink-lemonade stand, both of them grinning from ear to ear.

 

 .

 

‘I hate the Ferris wheel.’

‘Come on, Sammy, no one hates the Ferris wheel. It’s not a fucking carnival without it! Now, man up.’

Sam cuts him a vicious look but steps into the swinging bucket of a seat anyway, face pale until Dean slams the safety bar down across their laps, sliding a bit closer.

The night air around them is surprisingly cold for this time of year and Dean can feel Sam shiver against him. Wants to pull his jacket off his own shoulders and tuck it around Sam, even though he’d look ridiculous in it. Sam wouldn’t accept it anyway, would laugh and shove Dean away and Dean would have to pretend to be offended and Sam would roll his eyes some more and it’d be a whole Thing, so Dean just pushes his shoulder up against Sam’s and settles back to enjoy.

The bump and sway of the ride reminds him dimly of stretching the Impala out on back roads filled with twists and turns, the sun a mere memory through the thick canopy of trees above. Dean can’t remember the last time he got to do that. Probably California.

‘You’re making it move,’ Sam says, face pale again, head tucked down into his umpteen layers of clothes, as he resolutely avoids looking down.

Dean just manages to find the strength inside not to thrash around wildly and yell that that’s really kind of the point, and instead tucks himself a little closer to Sam’s side, runs idle fingers across the worn seam of his jeans. Sam relaxes a little and Dean feels himself smile.

‘C’mere.’

‘I am not kissing you on this thing,’ Sam says as Dean pushes in closer, breath ghosting warm and moist from his mouth as he leans away, giving Dean an incredulous look.

‘Sure you are.’ Dean is not about miss out on a golden opportunity like this, especially when Sam can’t even seem to formulate a decent argument as to why not.

He presses his mouth to Sam’s, warm and light, lips opening the tiniest bit as he slips his tongue across Sam’s lips, tasting sugar there, sugar and sunlight and so much warmth he feels dizzy with it as Sam’s mouth opens for him. His thumbs trace the smooth skin just behind Sam’s ears, fingers tugging gently on the impossibly soft hair that falls down across his neck as he pulls him forward, further into him, and Sam makes that tiny, desperate sound in the back of his throat. The one Dean’s always subconsciously waiting for, and Dean slides his tongue into the slick heat of Sam’s mouth, moaning into him as Sam’s fingers slip around his hips, push gentle but insistent at the hem of his shirt.

Dean attempts to remind himself that they’re in public but can’t seem to make anything south of his brain care at the moment. Sam’s fingers clench a little, roughly into the leather of his jacket, pulling him closer until he’s nearly in his lap, the damned safety bar digging irritatingly but unimportantly into his hip, and Sam’s eyes slide open as Dean pulls away a little, tries not to gasp when he sees the heat simmering in Sam’s gaze, low and full of promise.

‘You know, we could always--’

‘Of fucking course!’ Sam shouts as the ride shudders to a halt around them and Dean looks up and away from Sam to see that they are, of course, caught at the apex. He goes to lean over the side to see just how far they are from the ground but Sam’s hands grab around his arm before he can even move, look on his face somewhere between panicked and livid.

Dean rolls his eyes but sits back anyway. Let’s his eyes drift back up to meet Sam’s and smiles, tipping his head a little. ‘Well, since we’re up here.’

‘Don’t even think about it.’

 

. 

 

‘I think I’m going to die.’

Sam hears Dean chuckle beside him and collapses a little further back onto the cool metal of the Impala’s hood, lazily flipping his brother off.

‘Shut it.’

‘Didn’t say a thing, Sammy. But if I were going to say something--’

‘I get to do the ‘I told you so’s’ in this family, Dean, not you.’ He thinks his argument might hold a little more sway if he weren’t passed out on top of the car in the dim moonlight, outside of a carnival no less, but he doesn’t let it bother him. Much.

Dean laughs some more before grasping his wrist and throwing Sam’s arm over his shoulder, lifting and shoving until Sam’s somewhere in the vicinity of the open passenger door before unceremoniously dumping him in.

‘Gee. Thanks.’

‘Anytime.’

Sam snorts and manages somehow not to blush as Dean reaches across him once he’s settled into the driver’s side, slipping the seatbelt over his shoulder and down to click in place.

‘Thanks,’ Sam says, meaning it this time, and slouches down in his seat, closing his eyes.

Dean grunts a little and slips a tape from the deck into the box beneath his seat, flicks the dial on the radio over until he finds a station that comes in clearly. Sam can feel sleep slide over his bones before a chorus he doesn’t begin to recognize has a chance to kick in, smiles as he hears the empty sound of what can only be described as modern rock wash over him.

 

. 

 

‘Where to, sunshine?’ Dean throws a glance Sam's way as they pull out of town, tires kicking dust up behind them, early morning sun glittering off carnival rides in the rearview mirror. He tells himself he won’t miss this. This sparkling, distant place filled with happiness and freedom, absent of anything even resembling memory.

Just one more lie.

Sam looks up from the map clenched tightly in his hands and yawns, closing his eyes and swirling his finger around through the air before pinning it down in the far left corner of the map, fingertip just covering their next destination. The next thorn in their side, Dean wants to say, but doesn’t.

‘Think we can make it to Cheyenne by tonight?’ Sam asks, and Dean can see something spark behind his eyes. Part challenge, part excitement.

Dean smirks at him across the scant space between them and winks, because he knows it will make Sam laugh. Sam doesn’t disappoint.

‘Come on now, Sammy. Have I ever let you down before?’

 

 


End file.
